Since the NGO office functioned six days a week I had only Sunday free to make forays into the vast tourist paradise that is Andamans. The first weekend it rained so I had to stay at home. It is a different kind of rain here in the Andamans. It rains heavily for ten or fifteen minutes and then the skies clear up. The roads don’t have any puddles or pools of rainwater because it all drains away. But later on, it rained continuously on some days. This rain prompted me to buy an umbrella which I never got the chance to use. I also bought a digital camera.
You would think that anyone going to such a beautiful place like the Andamans would have the sense to pack in a decent camera. Not me. I borrowed a friend’s aim and shoot camera before leaving. But one visit to Ross Island I thought I had made the dumbest decision by not bringing along a good camera. Anyway, upto that point I didn’t even own a camera so I did the best thing I could do and shelled down nearly ten thousand rupees to buy a Sony digital camera. This I bought after my visit to Ross Island on the second weekend of my 90 day stay.
Now, Ross Island is just a twenty minutes boat ride from the Marina in Port Blair. It is a tree-filled island one can spot very easily. The boats leave every two hours and the ticket is sixty rupees. I got into a boat that had the name MV Rubdeep. The ticket for entry into Ross Island is twenty rupees per head and ten more if you also bring a camera. I takes about thirty minutes to reach Ross Island by boat.
There were huge coconut trees and there were so many of them that someone was actually selling coconuts. Somewhere it was written that you would be fined one hundred rupees if you pick the coconuts. Then there was another board that said that anyone touching the lights on the island would be handed over to the police. Another board said ‘No Plastic’ but it was plastic everywhere I went. However, it was a beautiful, beautiful place, the small island that was once from where the Britishers ruled the place.
There are quarters, their stores, even a church built by the Britishers now in ruins. A small museum on RI says the island was called ‘Venice of the East.’ On the other side of the island, I sat on a rock staring at the endless blue sea stretching before me. It was beautiful beyond description on the sunny May weekend that I went.
There was a cemetery with tombs of all those who had died there. There are gun turrets built into the land, long tunnels. It was quite scary entering those and you won’t stay there for long because it smells of bats. It was so beautiful, the place I regretted not having a camera and the first thing I did on returning to Port Blair was buy the digital camera.
You would think that anyone going to such a beautiful place like the Andamans would have the sense to pack in a decent camera. Not me. I borrowed a friend’s aim and shoot camera before leaving. But one visit to Ross Island I thought I had made the dumbest decision by not bringing along a good camera. Anyway, upto that point I didn’t even own a camera so I did the best thing I could do and shelled down nearly ten thousand rupees to buy a Sony digital camera. This I bought after my visit to Ross Island on the second weekend of my 90 day stay.
Now, Ross Island is just a twenty minutes boat ride from the Marina in Port Blair. It is a tree-filled island one can spot very easily. The boats leave every two hours and the ticket is sixty rupees. I got into a boat that had the name MV Rubdeep. The ticket for entry into Ross Island is twenty rupees per head and ten more if you also bring a camera. I takes about thirty minutes to reach Ross Island by boat.
There were huge coconut trees and there were so many of them that someone was actually selling coconuts. Somewhere it was written that you would be fined one hundred rupees if you pick the coconuts. Then there was another board that said that anyone touching the lights on the island would be handed over to the police. Another board said ‘No Plastic’ but it was plastic everywhere I went. However, it was a beautiful, beautiful place, the small island that was once from where the Britishers ruled the place.
There are quarters, their stores, even a church built by the Britishers now in ruins. A small museum on RI says the island was called ‘Venice of the East.’ On the other side of the island, I sat on a rock staring at the endless blue sea stretching before me. It was beautiful beyond description on the sunny May weekend that I went.
There was a cemetery with tombs of all those who had died there. There are gun turrets built into the land, long tunnels. It was quite scary entering those and you won’t stay there for long because it smells of bats. It was so beautiful, the place I regretted not having a camera and the first thing I did on returning to Port Blair was buy the digital camera.
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